[gerso]

Huh? I assume you're talking about footnote #7:

  [7] Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”

That's a pretty standard, if exaggerated, take on the decline of communism from a capitalist perspective. Would anyone on the left even disagree with what he says about how Marxism was expanded?

[int_19h]

I would strongly disagree with the part about "Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics". Marxism is still Marxism, and it's still about economics. Most Western Marxists are also socially liberal, but the so-called "cultural Marxism" is a chimera created by the right.

[ZeroGravitas]

He seems to be claiming that black people, gay people, women, trans folk and the poor were in no way oppressed and it was all made up by Communists to take down capitalism.

You can probably find some people who agree with individual parts of that but if you get a full bingo then you're basically dealing with a Nazi.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Ma...

[smsm42]

> He seems to be claiming that black people, gay people, women, trans folk and the poor were in no way oppressed and it was all made up by Communists to take down capitalism.

No he doesn't. He says Marxists participated in gender/race politics, and the ultimate goal of Marxists was destruction of capitalism. Which, btw, if you read any of real Marxists - who aren't exactly hiding, thanks (not ironically, they shouldn't be hiding) to the wide freedoms allowed to all of us by American democracy, that's exactly what you will see, in very plain words - they blame capitalism for these problems and want it to be eliminated.

That doesn't mean, of course, that everybody who participates in gender/race politics is a Marxist. There are a lot of folks that legitimately want, e.g., for gays not to be booted off work for being gay, without necessarily buying into the whole eternal oppressor/oppressed identity/class struggle narrative. Neither it means - and nowhere it was claimed - that "black people, gay people, women, trans folk and the poor were in no way oppressed".

> then you're basically dealing with a Nazi.

You just called somebody a Nazi because he said Marxists are lefties and are against capitalism. Way to go.

[ZeroGravitas]

No, I called someone a Nazi because they put a extreme right wing conspiracy theory into a footnote of a manifesto about hiring less minorities.

No one asked for their opinion on Marxism. No one asked for their opinion on Google hiring practices. They volunteered both, and the fact that in their mind these things are entwined together.

Which, not coincidentally, is a talking point of those so far right that facist or Nazi is not a slur but a descriptive adjective, sometimes self-applied.

Plenty of people hate Marxists. It's the ones that think Google wouldn't hire gay people unless Marxist's wanted them to, and therefore hate Marxists that you need to watch.

[smsm42]

> because they put a extreme right wing conspiracy theory into a footnote of a manifesto about hiring less minorities.

This is false. Neither the manifesto was "about hiring less minorities", nor the footnote contained the conspiracy theory. The footnote contained facts, which you declared to be Nazi conspiracy theory because Nazi conspirologists mentioned the same facts. It's like saying somebody is a Nazi because Nazis think 2x2=4 and they do too, so they clearly agree with Nazis, so they are Nazis themselves.

> No one asked for their opinion on Marxism

You imply one should express one's opinion only if Powers That Be - of which you undoubtedly see yourself as a prominent member - ask them to? Wouldn't you like that. Fortunately, it's not the case - one can express one's opinion about Marxism whenever one likes to, and that doesn't make one a Nazi.

> No one asked for their opinion on Google hiring practices

Shut up, grunt, and back to the keyboard! We don't pay you to have opinions!

Sure, why not. Google has the right of insist their workers STFU and let the VPs think for them. It's not what it says on the box, but if it's what it is, no problem.

> Which, not coincidentally, is a talking point of those so far right that facist or Nazi is not a slur but a descriptive adjective

No it is not. Nothing expressed in the manifesto has anything to do with Nazism, and the only extremely tenuous connection that you could find is that some Nazi conspirologists also talked about Marxists participating in gender politics. Which would be very easy to observe to anybody who knows anything about current politics. Your claim that it is not a slur is a bald-faced lie.

> It's the ones that think Google wouldn't hire gay people unless Marxist's wanted them to

If you imply that the author of manifesto thinks something like that, it is again a lie. If you do not, I don't understand why you brought up those imaginary non-existing people.

I also find it disappointing, though not surprising, that the whole discussion of a long and dense text concentrates here on latching on a couple of words in a footnote, misinterpreting them in the most hostile way possible, affixing the most emotional and charged label available and refusing to discuss anything else on the grounds that affixing the label explains everything. It is, unfortunately, what many people on the internet think political discussion is. The same people then lament how bad the politics has gone lately. Maybe they should stop digging.

[currymj]

I mean at the end of the day the story about “Marxist intellectuals” making an enemy out of “straight, cis white males” after “class warfare” failed to overthrow society sounds almost exactly like the Frankfurt School/“cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory. (Its a specific conspiracy theory btw, not just the general and true observation that the left is more concerned with race and gender than it used to be.)

Maybe it’s not deliberate but given the context it raised a major eyebrow for me.

[smsm42]

> sounds almost exactly like the Frankfurt School/“cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory

Nope, it does not. The only common things are that both talk about Marxists (as do many other conversations, including ours) and about gender politics (as do many other conversations, including guess what). Not everybody who opposes Marxists is a Nazi who thinks Jews from Frankfurt School want to take over the world. And not everybody who thinks class-warfare (or identity-warfare) approach to society is wrong is a conspirologist Nazi.

> Its a specific conspiracy theory btw

Right. And that's why using it as a generic club to bash over the head everybody who ever mentions Marxists and their participation in gender politics in negative light is wrong.

> Maybe it’s not deliberate but given the context it raised a major eyebrow for me.

Only because your major eyebrow was on hair trigger to be raised. You need to adjust your eyebrow so it won't raise over every mention of mundane political arguments and not call a Nazi everybody who says something about Marxists. Having such eyebrow makes you look bad.

[currymj]

In my experience, especially the US south, that specific narrative ("did you know that Marxist intellectuals started promoting gender and racial theory after their attempts at class warfare failed to overthrow the US?") has usually indicated that somebody's about to start going on at the very least about Alex Jones nonsense, perhaps about how George Soros controls the world. Online people tend to take off the mask and you get actual Holocaust denial.

If someone says "the left, including Marxists, is concerned with gender and race in a way it wasn't previously" then I agree totally. Likewise if someone mentions that various Marxist intellectuals have contributed to political theory around gender, race, etc., that's just a fact. If someone says "I'm a conservative, the politics around race and gender are harmful", I'll disagree strongly, but that's it.

It's this specific story or narrative that Marxist intellectuals were trying to use class warfare to gain power, and when it failed they shifted to promoting race and gender based politics to gain power, that is very troubling for me due to repeated experience. Citing it offhand as a commonplace makes me wonder whether he shares the same intellectual influences as the other people I've heard say it.

[smsm42]

> especially the US south, that specific narrative /.../ has usually indicated that somebody's about to

Stereotyping is ok, as long as we are doing it for the right reasons. For us, there's no need to consider the personality and the content of the message, as long as we can label him a Nazi because couple of words matched.

> Online people tend to take off the mask and you get actual Holocaust denial.

Wow, it's Holocaust denial now. Gowdin, save me!

> It's this specific story or narrative that Marxist intellectuals were trying to use class warfare to gain power, and when it failed they shifted to promoting race and gender based politics to gain power, that is very troubling for me due to repeated experience

Let's see. Do Marxist intellectuals participate in race and gender based politics? Yes they do. Do they want to have power? Of course they do, what's the point of getting into politics if not getting power and getting policies you like enacted? So what exactly makes you a conspirologist Nazi when you mention these obvious - and entirely unsurprising for anybody who knows what "Marxist" and "politics" means - facts?

> Citing it offhand as a commonplace makes me wonder whether he shares the same intellectual influences

Nope, nope. You didn't just "wonder whether he shared influences" (if you go far enough, everybody shared influences, otherwise we couldn't even communicate), you said his claims were literally Nazi talking points and connected to antisemitic conspiracy. Which is not true at the least, the only common thing is the basic facts which no sane person would deny. After recognizing those facts, the actual Nazis go way off course of the facts into the looney bin territory, and invent crazy conspiracies like Jews being behind all this to take over the world. The author does nothing of the sort. Yes, they both start with the same facts. That's because facts are facts, they are independent of who recognizes them. It's where you take it from there is important. The Nazis take it into craziness, as is their way, the manifesto author does not.